Economics, politics

[hudebnik]

See this NY Times article about the effects zero-interest borrowing is actually having on the US economy.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Comments

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I'd also considered a WPA-like strategy, and it does have its strong points as well. (After all, I'm in the middle of reading a book whose source material came from a WPA-like program... The Food Of A Younger Land).

The question arises: what would you have these folks DO for their work? That's a hard call to make. (And in a world where people confuse socialism as a critique, it's a long ball to hit.)

I must admit that I'm not against capitalism: so, in my ignorance, I lean toward giving people who will SPEND money on infrastructure that we need, the money the need to spend. I want what we already are doing: but more of it.

I'm totally unclear on how a WPA-like program would do that.

There are, also and separately, infrastructure improvements that we could make, and this would be a good time to make them. But I don't know that a WPA-like program would be a better way to do that, then for the US Government to just purchase new highways, new alternative fuel vehicles, and so forth.

I admit that I am an amateur playing with these concepts. It's kind of fun to fiddle while Rome burns, I have to tell you. :-)

[hudebnik.livejournal.com]

what would you have these folks DO for their work?

There's plenty of construction to be done -- roads, bridges, mass transit, high-speed railways, fuel-efficient housing and school buildings.... And you could hire a bunch of public librarians and K-12 teachers (or, more likely, give the states a pile of money earmarked for hiring public librarians and K-12 teachers, whom they are currently laying off).

These are all "public goods" from which everybody benefits, but no one person benefits enough to pay for them.

If a private company derives most of the benefit from a particular project, and that company has money, that project will probably be done without government involvement. But if the benefit of a project is inherently broadly distributed, the "tragedy of the commons" tells us it won't happen without public funding.

[hudebnik.livejournal.com]

I don't know that a WPA-like program would be a better way to do that, then for the US Government to just purchase new highways, new alternative fuel vehicles, and so forth.

Sure, in some cases you can just announce a government purchasing program, somebody will bid on it and will have to hire in order to fill the order. I have no problem with contracting some of this stuff out; I don't really care whether people get their paychecks from the government or from a company hired by the government, as long as they get paychecks for doing something useful.